


The Hero, He was Dalish

by CopperCaravan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dalish, F/M, Fenera Mahariel, Gen, General Cast - Freeform, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:21:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4502334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Mahariel disappears in the cave and Tamlen becomes the Grey Warden. Major focus on Tamlen/Mahariel & Tamlen's grief, also on his relationship to the plot in relation to Dalish identity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hero, He was Dalish

**Author's Note:**

> Be forewarned: "angry Dalish elf" to follow and lots of grief. I was thinking about doing smaller, more detailed and focused companion pieces to sort of fill out the "spaces-in-between," but I haven't decided (mostly I know I'm just going to write more things that make me sad). If you enjoy this and would be interested in more, let me know, otherwise, I may never actually get around to doing it.

Something is gone. He feels that before anything else; before he’s even really awake, he knows it: something is gone.

The light is far too bright, even through the cloth of the tent.

Everything aches.

And he can’t remember...

“Tamlen,” Fenarel says, just a bit too loudly, when he steps outside the tent. “You’re awake!”

He shields his eyes from the glaring sun. His body hurts, his skin and muscles and bones. It’s all wrong; everything is all wrong.

Fenarel props him up when he stumbles. “Are you alright?”

“I—I don’t...” _I don’t know._ “What’s happened?” His voice is thin, cracking in all the wrong places. Water. He needs water.

“A shem brought you back,” Fenarel tells him, walking his slumping body toward the Keeper. “He said he found you in a cave.”

_A cave... A shem. And a cave. And..._

Marethari holds his chin in her hand—a practiced grip for injured children who won’t be still, a light restraint he knows all too well. She turns his face to the side, then up into the light. It hurts. “How are you feeling, da’len?”

“Terrible,” he says, but he can chuckle a bit. The Keeper will know—will know what happened, will know what’s wrong, will know how to fix it. Everything will be alright.

But everything is all wrong. There’s a heat in his blood, pumping through him like poison and the light is too bright and his insides feel rotten. But there’s something else—like something is... missing. Something is gone.

He looks around. She isn’t here. He doesn’t understand.

“Keeper,” he says, and her eyes meet his and he knows. “Where is Mahariel?”

-

“Believe me when I tell you she is gone. There is nothing you can do for her.”

He wants to kill this shem. He wants to burn this whole place to the ground, the statues and artefacts and history be damned!

“You are sick. Your Keeper’s magic cannot hold the Blight at bay. I can cure you.”

Doesn’t he understand? Doesn’t this bloody shem understand that none of that matters?

_The only thing that matters is her._

_The only thing that matters is gone._

-

“You’re sending me away, Keeper?” How can she do this? This is his home. This is where he belongs, with his people. He’s not finished the bow he was working on; Ilen will be furious. He’s not mended Ashalle’s aravel yet; it will leak the next time it rains. He’s not put the Keeper’s book back in her tent; she’ll think Merrill has lost it. He has to stay here. This is where he belongs, with his Keeper and with Merrill and Junar and Mahar—

“I would not watch you suffer, da’len. We cannot bear to lose you too.”

_Too. Also. As well as._

_Because Mahariel is gone._

He belongs with her and she is gone.

“If this is my duty, I will go.” He speaks through gritted teeth. He will do as he is told. Keeper Marethari knows how to mend things—cuts and scrapes and broken bones. But she says she cannot fix this, cannot mend his heart or the poison in his veins. “I will stay for Mahariel’s—I will stay for the funeral.” He does not ask. It is not a request.

“I would not deny you that,” Duncan says. And Tamlen thinks _Because you cannot. Because I have been denied everything else._ Everything is all wrong now.

-

Tamlen hates Jory.

He hates sitting by their paltry fire in the too-damp marshlands of the Wilds listening to yet another bloody shem talk about his mate back home. “When this is done,” Jory says. “I will go back to my love, to my Helena, and raise our child on stories of how we defeated the Blight here.”

Tamlen cannot go to his love. There will never be a child, put to bed with stories of hunts and long journeys and the bravery of their people.

“Or perhaps we’ll all die here in this muck,” Tamlen says. He does not care for the looks—Daveth’s confusion at his bitter voice and the pity on Alistair’s face. _Damn Duncan,_ he thinks, _for speaking of her to this ignorant man._ He turns away from them. Otherwise, he will break.

-

“And you?” says the Witch, cocking her eyebrow at him. “Does your sharp elven mind grant you a different perspective?”

_Something about this woman..._ But he still aches with the Blight and he has no time for games. If Marethari has taught him anything, however, it is to respect old women with powerful magic.

“Thank you for returning these,” he says stiffly, shoving the treaties into his bag. “We’ll be going.”

“Manners! Always in the last place you look.” She winks at him and turns to her daughter. “Morrigan, show these fearless hunters back to their camp.”

He does not falter at those words. _My proud warrior,_ she’d called him, her lips at his ear. _My fearless hunter._ He turns away and follows the raven haired witch through the marsh.

-

_More poison,_ he thinks. _More blackness to swallow so it can swallow me._

He drinks, deep and choking on the viscous blood.

When it is over, when he has woken to a locket of shemlen blood and memories of the same horrors he’d seen in the mirror, he does not feel different.

-

“Is there no end to this darkness?” he screams, arrows flying through the smoke and the rain.

Daveth and Jory are dead and he’d cared little. But now, with a gate guard and a chained mage and Alistair at his side, he wishes for the extra hands.

They fell their foes and light the beacon and nothing comes but death.

-

The Witch has returned, it seems.

“You were wounded, but ‘twas nothing Mother could not heal,” says the raven-haired witch in her singsong voice.

_I am still wounded,_ he thinks. _I can never be healed._

“Your friend is not taking it well,” she says. He would tell her that the shem is not his friend, but things are different now. This is not a matter of friends and mourning and making amends. It is Blight. It is war. It is survival.

He will not fail his people; he will not fall and leave them unprotected from this darkness that has already stolen so much.

-

It hadn’t been mercy but convenience that had kept the bandits alive at the gates of Lothering.

But now he returns, arrow knocked and poised to kill. “There are elves in the village,” he begins and fires. One man falls.

“They tell me you robbed them.” Another knocked, another shot.

“That you stole from their little child.” Two more.

Their leader, last among them, holds up his hands. “Wait!”

“They must beg for bread in a village of shemlen,” Tamlen says, knocking the final arrow, the fletching—goose feathers, placed by her hands—soft against the rise of his cheek.

“I was just trying to—to feed my family, you know?”

“That is a duty I know well,” Tamlen says and lets his arrow fly.

-

“The Maker, he spoke to me,” she says, her hair the color of the tavern’s hearth.

“I’ve no call for your human god,” he says. “But if you’re going to fight, ready yourself.”

-

“You’re the... Revered Mother?” He asks, the words of the Chantry strange in his mouth. “You lead these people?”

“I am the Revered Mother of this Chantry, yes,” she says and does not rise from her seat. “Have you come to make a donation? The Chantry accepts the tithes of all.”

His Blighted blood boils. _How dare you ask for tithes from me. I’ve gods of my own._ He thinks of Master Ilen, carving the crest of June and hanging it atop his crafting table. _I have paid dues you can never know._ A cave and a mirror and a cup of poison. A woman lost, a family left, a man he does not know living in his skin. _And I’ve my own wonders to worship._ Her hands, her lips, her hair, all soft and pliant against him. Her skin—slick with sweat and salt—and the bowman’s calluses on her fingers rough against him, dragging need up the line of his spine.

With thoughts of her, he defiles this temple.

The world has defiled him too, after all. And she would laugh at the gentle blush and happy lines of his mouth—what this _Mother_ takes as affirmation.

He thinks of his mother, crying in her bedroll and no longer waiting for him to return.

He thinks of Ashalle.

“We couldn’t find her. I—I’m sorry. This is my fault,” he’d said.

“No, my dear,” she’d told him, her hand on his shoulder in comfort. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” She’d been wrong. He’d wanted to go into that cave. He should’ve turned back. But he’d let her comfort him—they’d both lost all that mattered—and she’d said “She loved you.”

He thinks of Marethari, mother to them all, mender of broken things, and teacher and guide and protector.

_What does this woman do?_ He thinks, spiteful and curious at once. But he has no time for these thoughts—for spite and curiosity, for memories of mourning and love.

“Release the qunari,” he says. “I am taking him into my custody.”

Because Tamlen doesn’t need good men. Tamlen needs warriors. Tamlen needs soldiers—fighters and killers at his command. Tamlen does not want these shemlen, their witches and templars and priests. But he cannot fight this war alone and losing is not an option.

-

Death, he decides, is not the great equalizer. His people die in droves: exposure to the harsh winters, starvation when the game’s run dry, wanton violence from shemlen wanderers, purges by the local lords. There is no brave, long-lost uncle with titles and armies and vassals to stand between his people and the horde. There is only him.

He does not wish for senseless death, does not take pleasure in their suffering. But he does not want to help this man because when has the Bann ever helped them? When this is all over, this man, this noble, Alistair’s uncle Teagan will not stand for the Dalish in thanks. He will not remember Tamlen’s sacrifice, or even Tamlen’s name. He will never demand his brother cede land for wandering elves or enforce justice when his people dock the pointed tips of the ‘knife-eared savages.’

“Very well,” Tamlen says, nodding acknowledgement of Redcliffe’s plight. “I will help your people.” _And you will remember us._

-

When the mage speaks of sacrifice, Tamlen does not hesitate.

“Do it,” he says, and the Arlessa breathes relief.

“What?” Alistair steps in front of him. “How can you do this? How can more blood magic be of any good any here?”

“And your kin? You’d kill this child?” Tamlen has no time, no patience, for men who cannot make choices. If Alistair wants this da’len murdered for the sins of others, then he will be the one to wield the blade. The Blight has made Tamlen many things—tired, hard, alone—but it will never make him heartless, never make him cruel. There is not one among his clan who would not stand between Alistair’s sword and this child, shemlen though he is.

“I...” Tamlen pushes him aside; the long-lost prince lets others do hard things.

He nods and Morrigan readies herself as Isolde is held in the air.

-

“How could you do that?” Alistair’s anger is understandable, to an extent. Tamlen pities him—he is too well-meaning for the life he leads now. “The Arl, he deserved better. I owed him more than this.”

“A dead son? Is that what you owed him? A child spoiled by the ignorance of his elders?” He does not speak harshly, though his patience is thin.

“I... I’m sorry. It’s just all this death.” Tamlen cannot respect a man who does not make his own decisions; he cannot respect a man who does not do his duty or who leaves harder things to harder men. But he can respect Alistair for this—there is nothing good to be found in death, in another’s loss. Strength is to be respected, but so is gentleness, so is hope, so is compassion.

And Tamlen will not lose those things—he promises this to himself, and to her.

-

“You did not want to enter the Fade.” It is not a question; Morrigan had made her feelings clear, but she had done as he asked. For all that their companions see a heartless shrew in her, she had done what was required. She—more than any of them—had saved Conner.

“No,” she says. “Nor was I particularly pleased that you volunteered me.”

“Ma serannas,” he says. “You did well.”

“And I am so _happy_ to have your approval.” But he does not miss the upturned lips as she turns away from him.

-

Tamlen would like this Antivan, had they met under better circumstances. His humour, his wit, is familiar and welcome, although the knife on his hip is not.

“If you betray me,” Tamlen tells him, hand extended to help him up from the ground. “I will kill you.”

The assassin dips his head. “A fair trade, I think.”

-

This tower—this _Circle,_ as they call it—is all wrong. Abominations aside, Tamlen is appalled.

“You were a Templar, Alistair.”

“Not officially, but I was trained, yes.”

“And you condone this? This... prison?” Is this what life is for the shemlen with magic? Is this what life is for his cousins in the shemlen cities? Would this have been Merrill’s fate, had she the misfortune of being born flat-eared? The thought makes him rage. “I do not understand your people—you squander your gifts, you cage what you do not understand and inflict suffering on those not like you.”

“I say we let them lie in the grave they have made,” Morrigan says dryly. She has no pity for these people who could have been hers, had things been different. He shakes his head.

He cannot fight two wars. He needs an army and an army he will have, but he will not forget this place.

“Let’s go,” he says. This woman—Wynne—who would stand before a group of warriors to defend children, he will help her. And when this is over, she will help him.

-

She stands, a mischievous grin on her face, and he falls to his knees before her. She is here, she is safe and warm and very much alive.

“My proud warrior,” she coos. “My fearless hunter, come to save me at last.”

“Mahariel,” he pleads with her. “I looked for you! I searched for hours in the rubble and the dark. I—”

She presses a finger to his lips, wipes away the tears with the pad of her thumb. “I know; I’m safe now. I’m home. Everything will be alright.”

Forgiveness. He kisses her hands, covers her palms and fingers and wrists in the love he has held onto. He has always been hers. He always will be. “Ir abelas,” he whispers, over and over into her skin. “Ar lath ma; ir abelas.”

But when he looks up, for just a moment, it is not her face.

A flicker, a shift, a mistake.

He is tired. He does not have the strength he needs. But he could never rest here, with this monster that wears her perfect face imperfectly. Somewhere, in the parts of him that are left, he hears her voice. He remembers.

_She sings to his brother, still just an infant, resting in her arms. El’gara vallas, da’len, melava somniar... He so rarely gets to see her this way, gentle and quiet. She is laughter and strength and arrows that always fly straight. She is beautiful and she loves him. I will make a home for you, he promises her silently. I will lend you my strength and lean on yours in return. I will love you. Ma garas mir renan, ara ma’athlan vhenas._

He buries his knife in the cruel creature and the path opens up before him. He will escape this beautiful nightmare. And he will loose his wrath on its maker.

-

“Did you fail Mahariel?”

The guardian of this temple sees far too much. Like the Chantry in Lothering, Tamlen would defile this place. His own people have so little left and these humans force him to a temple built to withstand any assault, designed to safeguard the ashes of a woman long dead and prod him with unanswerable questions. Wherever he goes, these shemlen demand more and more from him, as though their Maker sent him to be their saviour. As though his misfortunes are a beacon of hope for them. As though his losses are their gains.

He failed her. He could not protect her, could not even bring her body home. Does she wander the Beyond, he wonders, unable to find her way without her staff, without a branch to scatter the ravens of fear and deceit? Did she die alone, knowing ‘til the end that he would come for her? Was his name the final sound from her lips, her thoughts filled with concern for his life? _I did,_ he thinks, _but I will not fail her again._

“I owe you nothing,” he says, face impassive. _I will protect our family, I will protect our people from the horde that presses us. I will conquer this Blight if it costs me my life. Not just for her, but for the clan that wanders without us both. For our home, though we are not wanted. For our ancestors, though their names are lost. For our people, so long overlooked by the acolytes of this prophet. I will conquer this Blight and Thedas will know the Dalish._

And he walks into the Guantlet.

-

They leave Redcliffe behind them, Arl Eamon revived.

“I don’t want to be king,” Alistair tells him.

“I don’t want to be a Warden,” Tamlen says.

-

“Aneth ara, brother.”

How long has it been since he’s heard those words? He closes his eyes and pretends the voice is a familiar one, Maren, perhaps, or Ineria.

He exhales. It feels like the first breath he has ever taken. “Ma serannas, sister. Ir isala halani. Where is your Keeper?”

-

It is not what he thought. It is not what the Keeper told him, Witherfang and their Lady.

How could the shemlen do such a thing? But he knows—he has seen his brothers and sisters come wandering home, bleeding and weeping, their ears docked like dogs. He has seen the Circle, where they cage and enslave even their own people. He has heard the stories Pol told of the alienage and killed the bandits who stole from his city-dwelling cousins. He has heard the regret in the voices of this clan, Lanaya and Sarel and Athras.

What they did to Zathrian’s children—he is horrified, he is outraged, but he is not shocked.

But the sins of these shemlen are not the same. They did not inflict horrors upon his children. They are not innocent, however. Many of his people have died, in pain, feverish and angry and suffering because of what these monstrous men have done.

Still...

“Ir abelas, hahren,” he says, sharing genuine sorrow with his elder. “But how could you lie to us? All this time—we thought we were regaining the ways of our ancestors, that you would be the key to reclaiming the time we lost. You’re a Keeper,” he screams. “And you lied to our people!”

You’re a Keeper. You are the honoured, the wise, the infallible. You are protector and guide and teacher. You give counsel and wisdom, hold the lives of those who love you and follow you in the palm of your hand. Their survival rests in the weight of your staff and their hope in the truth of your words.

And you lied to us all.

When it is done, the shemlen thank him. “Go far away from here,” he says. “Do not ever return. And remember all the Dalish have lost for you.” They can never understand—they were not burdened with dead and tortured children. They do not know the sorrow he carries, the shame in being part of Zathrian’s fall. They will not bear the guilt and grief of returning to his people and telling them what he’s done.

These shemlen have their own sorrows, their own curse, but what is the burden of ten men, of twenty, of one hundred when weighed against the loss of Arlathan, of the Dales, of the millions in squalor and slavery and exile?

It was right, what he did, but he does not bear it with pride. He must return, recruit more of his brothers and sisters to throw them proud and fierce against this horde, but he gathers up Zathrian’s body. _There will be no more of my people lost to wander in the Beyond. I will carry you home, hahren, and I pray Falon’Din guide you to your son and your daughter._

-

Leliana sings the dirge of his people. A mourning she does not understand, comfort taken from what she does not know.

The last he sang this song with his clan, he sang it over an empty grave, praying Falon’Din guide her, his Mahariel, though they could not lay her body to rest.

_Vhenan na melana sahlin. Emma ir abelas, souver’inan isala hamin..._

But it had not been her time and the weary eyes are his.

-

He dreams of her often.

Some nights, she simply stands before him, just out of his reach. Some nights, he lies next to her, in the comfort and the quiet. Some nights, he ravishes her and the ache is never filled. Some nights, he remembers her: sleeping in the sun by the aravels, sassing hahren Paivel, stealing corn—just a bit—from the farmlands, bathing in the river.

But tonight, she is singing. Like the lullaby sung sweet into his baby brother’s ears, she sings the dirge to Tamlen. Her voice is sweet and low and heavy with his own sorrow.

And then it changes. It is twisted and high and screeching, a keening he had never known til the taint truly took its hold.

“Tamlen!” She screams. “Tamlen, wake up! They’re in the camp! Wake up!” Alistair shakes him and he takes in the chaos. Darkspawn. Even the camp is no longer safe.

They are felled quickly, but shadows linger near the edges.

He grips his knife—he is so tired and these creatures have invaded even the sanctuary offered in his sleep—and approaches the figure skulking in the trees.

“Lethallin,” she says.

_No._

“I’m so sorry, vhenan.”

_No, no, no._

“It sings to me, Tamlen. I can’t escape it—the song in my head.”

Her skin, her hair, her eyes. _You were dead,_ he wants to cry. _You were dead and now you tell me death was a mercy._

“Mahariel. Vhenan,” he tries to take her in his arms—he can still help her, cure her, make it all right. He just—he needs to—he can...

“No! Stay away!” She will not let him come close. _I only want to hold you, Vhenan. I only want to help._

“Ar lath ma, vhenan. You have to kill me.” But he can’t. She can’t ask him to.

_But she can._ _I left her in that cave, or somewhere in the forest. She was alone. All this time, I failed her._

_But I will not fail her again._ He cannot smell the death, the rotting flesh and darkspawn taint. He cannot see the pale and mottled flesh or the yellowed, hazy eyes. He sees only Mahariel, his vhenan, long hair curling in knots and skin scraped and scarred by rough play in the trees. Green eyes that see every part of him, deft hands that explore every inch. A gesture. A touch. A heartbeat.

"Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he whispers, and he is gentle when he draws the knife across her throat.

-

The Legion raise their swords and cry battle in his honor.

But he does not stop at killing—he mauls the monsters with knives long after they are dead, smears their blood over the whole of the stone floors, delights in the crack of their bones and the curling taper of their dying shrieks.

If Darkspawn know cruelty, if they know pain and vengeance and terror, he will teach them something far worse.

For he buried her alone.

-

He drinks with Oghren.

Oghren speaks of Branka, so Tamlen can be silent.

-

Denerim is all the corruption they were ever taught.

His cousins, sick and sold and enslaved. They are raped and beaten and imprisoned for righting a wrong committed against them.

The nobles squabble amongst themselves, paying little mind to the poverty slowly killing their city and only take note of _injustice_ when the Dark Wolf has passed by.

Knights demand his allegiance, his honor, his cooperation. He gives them one chance to back down.

Deceit is all this city knows.

They ask for his proof, for his argument, for his eloquence. He plays his own hand—Loghain falls and the next ruler makes promises to the Dalish people. _You will want to keep your word,_ he whispers. _Else a new follower of the Vir Banal’ras will demand your blood instead._

-

They will march tomorrow. And Riordan tells them the cost of the war.

Morrigan’s fingers curl in beckoning and she promises life. With those promises come conditions—a few years more to be a Warden, to hear the twisted song of other monsters until they finally call him to the endless dark. Magic he does not understand, a drop in a pond and ripples that he cannot guess at. A child that cannot be his and can never be Mahariel’s. An elf-blooded old god turned to the unknown purposes of an unknown woman, never to be sung to sleep with her sweet, low voice, or swaddled in the love of his people.

“Take it up with Alistair,” he says.

He does not grieve for what may come.

He is tainted. He is tired. He is brave.

-

_Arlathvhen,_ he whispers to himself as his armies fight and bleed and fall.

_Arlathvhen,_ he says into the smoke as the monster rises before him black and terror and the song pounding in his head.

_Arlathvhen_ , he screams atop the tower, plunging a broken sword into the demon’s skull.

He lets his mind wander, lets memories comfort the pain that runs through him—like burning and tearing and knives.

He is by the river. Merrill draws vines from above them, bending the sylvans to her will for their shade. Junar’s caught a fish and throws it at hahren Paivel ( _he’ll pay for that later,_ Tamlen thinks; _Paivel will give him requisition duty_ ). Fenarel smiles—a sight not often seen—because Maren has carved something beautiful. Tamlen remembers this day, the water glistening in the sun and the heat bearing down on them. There are fingers in his hair, then tracing the lines of his vallaslin, the markings so familiar she need not look into his face. But he will turn around and she will be there.

For love of the people, he fades away.


End file.
